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Equality, diversity, and inclusion (ED&I) matter to the Foundation; we take our responsibility to champion a more diverse and inclusive culture seriously. The Foundation has established an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee to further our ambition of developing an organisational culture with these values at its heart. The Committee is comprised of representatives from across the Foundation, including Governors, teaching and non-teaching colleagues from across our schools, and senior staff from the Foundation Office.  The Committee has held two meetings to date with a further planned pre-Christmas. The scope of the Committee is broad and it seeks to ensure equality, diversity and inclusion is embraced across all aspects of the employee lifecycle, from recruitment and development to recognition and reward.  Once the Committee is fully established, it will also consider how the Foundation can impact the wider Community. To date, the Committee has identified and started to implement several actions and these include developing our vision and roadmap, identifying ED&I work already undertaken by schools and future school priorities, facilitating the delivery of surveys and working with training providers to understand options for Unconscious Bias training.  It is also working on developing our knowledge of ED&I resources and networks and best practice to cascade to schools. The Committee reports into the HR Committee and links to the King Edward VI Student ED&I Committee.  The Committee will continue to work across the Foundation to ensure that the awareness and knowledge of all staff is developed in relation to ED&I and that it remains on the agenda of all schools. As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion we recognise that people are happier and more effective when they can be themselves. Ensuring our organisation has clear and progressive policies in place is key to sustaining an inclusive environment.  A number of ED&I policies are already in place and we have recently developed a Transgender Policy which details  the support provided to transgender employees throughout their employment.  The Foundation believes that providing a working environment that is free from discrimination, harassment or victimisation because of gender identity is an important step in ensuring that transgender employees feel respected and valued. A copy of the policy can be found on the Access HR system. For any further details or queries, please contact your school’s HR Partner. If anyone would like to get in touch regarding the work of the group, please email Ali Bretherton from the HR team at [email protected].